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The Assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand

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The Assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand

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Deeply in love, Ferdinand chose to marry Sophie Chotek in 1900 despite the opposition of his uncle, Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Josef, who refused to attend their wedding. Though not exactly a commoner, Sophie came from a family of obscure Czech nobles and not from a reigning or formerly reigning dynasty of Europe. As a result, her and Ferdinand's children were declared ineligible for the throne. Sophie also became the victim of countless petty slights. At imperial banquets, for example, she entered each room last, without an escort, and was then seated far away from her husband at the dinner table.

His marriage notwithstanding, Ferdinand remained Franz Josef's heir and inspector general of the army. In that capacity, he agreed to attend a series of June 1914 military exercises in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Austria-Hungary had just annexed these provinces a few years earlier against the wishes of neighboring Serbia, which likewise coveted them. Ferdinand believed the Serbs to be "pigs," "thieves," "murderers" and "scoundrels." Yet he had opposed annexation for fear that it would make an already turbulent political situation even worse. Formerly controlled by the Ottoman Empire, Bosnia-Herzegovina's population was roughly 40 percent Serb, 30 percent Muslim and 20 percent Croat, with various other ethnicities making up the remainder.

Upon learning of Ferdinand's upcoming visit, the Young Bosnians, a secret revolutionary society of peasant students, began plotting to assassinate him. In May, Gavrilo Princip, Trifko Grabez and Nedeljko Cabrinovic traveled to the Serbian capital of Belgrade, where they received six handheld bombs, four semi-automatic pistols and cyanide suicide capsules from members of the so-called Black Hand, a terrorist group with close ties to the Serbian army. After practicing with their pistols in a Belgrade park, the three men journeyed back to Bosnia-Herzegovina, receiving help from Black Hand associates to smuggle their weapons across the border. To this day, it remains unclear whether the Serbian government participated in the scheme.

Ferdinand and Sophie departed their estate for Bosnia-Herzegovina on June 23. Having received multiple warnings to cancel the trip, the archduke knew that danger potentially awaited them. "Our journey starts with an extremely promising omen," he purportedly said when the axles on his car overheated. "Here our car burns, and down there they will throw bombs at us." After arriving at a spa town a few miles outside of Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina's capital, Ferdinand attended two days of military exercises while Sophie visited schools and orphanages. On a whim, the couple drove in one evening to check out Sarajevo's bazaars. While there, they attracted a crowd of onlookers, including Princip, but were apparently treated with warmth and politeness.

Following a banquet with religious and political leaders, only one day of events remained before Ferdinand and Sophie were to return home. That morning, June 28, the archduke sent a telegram to his eldest son congratulating him on his latest exam results. He and Sophie then boarded a train for the short ride into Sarajevo. For once, Sophie was permitted to walk alongside Ferdinand during a brief troop inspection, after which the couple got in an open-topped car for a motorcade ride to city hall. The car in front of them was supposed to carry six specially trained officers but instead had only one, plus three local policemen. In fact, throughout the trip, Austro-Hungarian officials allegedly focused more attention on dinner menus than security details.

Meanwhile, seven Young Bosnians had fanned out along the Appel Quay, a main avenue in Sarajevo running parallel to the Miljacka River. When the motorcade passed by, its route having been published in advance, Cabrinovic asked which car carried the archduke. He then hurled his bomb at the car, only to watch it bounce off the folded-up roof and roll underneath the wrong vehicle. The subsequent explosion wounded two army officers and several bystanders but left Ferdinand and Sophie essentially unharmed. Cabrinovic jumped into the mostly dry riverbed and made a half-hearted attempt to kill himself before being apprehended. "I am a Serbian hero," he purportedly shouted as the police led him away. At least two other Young Bosnians also had good looks at the archduke but apparently lost the nerve to attempt an assassination.

Rather than immediately flee Sarajevo, Ferdinand decided to continue on to the planned event at city hall. Upon finishing that up, he insisted on visiting the wounded officers in the hospital. In order to dissuade any other bomb throwers, the motorcade zipped down the Appel Quay at high speeds. By mistake, however, the first three cars turned onto a side street right where Princip happened to be standing. As the cars attempted to reverse back onto the Appel Quay, Princip whipped out his pistol and fired two shots at the archduke from point-blank range, piercing him in the neck and also striking Sophie's abdomen. "Sophie, Sophie, don't die-stay alive for our children," Ferdinand murmured. Within minutes, though, both had passed away. Princip, a slender, 19-year-old Serbian army reject, later admitted to killing Ferdinand but said he had not meant to hit Sophie. Three weeks too young for the death penalty, Princip was given a 20-year sentence, but contracted tuberculosis and died in jail in April 1918, at the age of just 23.

With tensions already running high among Europe's powers, the assassination precipitated a rapid descent into World War I. First, Austria-Hungary gained German support for punitive action against Serbia. It then sent Serbia an ultimatum, worded in a way that made acceptance unlikely. Serbia proposed arbitration to resolve the dispute, but Austria-Hungary instead declared war on July 28, 1914, exactly a month after Ferdinand's death. By the following week, Germany, Russia, France, Belgium, Montenegro and Great Britain had all been drawn into the conflict, and other countries like the United States would enter later. Overall, more than 9 million soldiers and nearly that many civilians would die in fighting that lasted until 1918.

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The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, 100 Years Ago

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Deeply in love, Ferdinand chose to marry Sophie Chotek in 1900 despite the opposition of his uncle, Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Josef, who refused to attend their wedding. Though not exactly a commoner, Sophie came from a family of obscure Czech nobles and not from a reigning or formerly reigning dynasty of Europe.

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The Civil War | Fort Sumter | Ken Burns | PBS

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The Civil War began at 4:30 am on April 12, 1861 at Ft. Sumter, Charleston, SC.

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President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."

Despite this expansive wording, the Emancipation Proclamation was limited in many ways. It applied only to states that had seceded from the United States, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy (the Southern secessionist states) that had already come under Northern control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union (United States) military victory.

Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the nation, it captured the hearts and imagination of millions of Americans and fundamentally transformed the character of the war. After January 1, 1863, every advance of federal troops expanded the domain of freedom. Moreover, the Proclamation announced the acceptance of black men into the Union Army and Navy, enabling the liberated to become liberators. By the end of the war, almost 200,000 black soldiers and sailors had fought for the Union and freedom.

From the first days of the Civil War, slaves had acted to secure their own liberty. The Emancipation Proclamation confirmed their insistence that the war for the Union must become a war for freedom. It added moral force to the Union cause and strengthened the Union both militarily and politically. As a milestone along the road to slavery's final destruction, the Emancipation Proclamation has assumed a place among the great documents of human freedom.

The original of the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, is in the National Archives in Washington, DC. With the text covering five pages the document was originally tied with narrow red and blue ribbons, which were attached to the signature page by a wafered impression of the seal of the United States. Most of the ribbon remains; parts of the seal are still decipherable, but other parts have worn off.

The document was bound with other proclamations in a large volume preserved for many years by the Department of State. When it was prepared for binding, it was reinforced with strips along the center folds and then mounted on a still larger sheet of heavy paper. Written in red ink on the upper right-hand corner of this large sheet is the number of the Proclamation, 95, given to it by the Department of State long after it was signed. With other records, the volume containing the Emancipation Proclamation was transferred in 1936 from the Department of State to the National Archives of the United States.

The Emancipation Proclamation

Select Resources

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Enlarge The Emancipation Proclamation (page 1) Record Group 11 General Records of the United States View in National Archives Catalog Español President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war.

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In the weeks following the July 1863 Battle of Gettysburg, tens of thousands of families waited anxiously for word of the fate of their loved ones and friends serving in the contending armies. Had they been killed in the fighting? Had they survived only to suffer from agonizing wounds in crude, makeshift hospitals? The vivid contemporary evidence, found in the pension files for two Pennsyl-vania soldiers who fell at Gettysburg, sheds light on two different families' ordeals in the aftermath of the Civil War's largest battle.

In July 1862, the U.S. Congress passed the Pension Act, which provided a monthly stipend to former soldiers who had suffered service-related disabilities. In addition, if a soldier was killed in action, died of wounds, or had succumbed to a disease determined to have been incurred as a result of his military service, a monthly sum would be paid to the descendant's widow and minor children, or orphan, as applicable. If the deceased had no spouse or children, the survivor's pension would be issued to another family member, such as parents or siblings.

The National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C., holds thousands of these pension files. The documents there provide a brief glimpse into the lives of the men who fought for the Union and their families. Many files include poignant letters of condolence sent to a soldier's next of kin, give details of a loved one's passing, and sometimes even his place of burial. Following are two such letters, found in the mother's/widow's pension files, concerning two men who served in the 68th and 69th Pennsylvania Infantries, and fell fighting at Gettysburg. These letters are presented unedited with the original documents' grammar and spelling.

Private Peter Hilt
68th Pennsylvania, 1st Brigade,
1st Division, 3rd Corps

Before enlisting as a private in Company G of the 68th Pennsylvania in August 1862, 23-year-old Peter Hilt (or "Hill," according to some records) worked as a moulder in Albany, N.Y., where he lived with his widowed mother, Sibylla, age 55. Unmarried, and the only one of Sibylla's five children still residing at home, Peter contributed his $10 weekly earnings to the household, which his mother used for rent and necessities. While serving in the Union Army, Hilt sent most of his pay home to Sibylla, who, despite her age and physical infirmities, supplemented her son's contributions by cleaning several neighbors' homes.

Late on the afternoon of July 2, 1863, the 68th-part of Maj. Gen. Daniel Sickles' 3rd Corps, recognizable by the diamond patches (left) soldiers wore on their uniforms-was posted just south of Gettysburg in the Peach Orchard, where they would face the onslaught of Brig. Gen. William Barksdale's Mississippi Brigade. During the fierce fighting, one of Hilt's thighs was shattered by a gunshot wound. Several comrades carried the suffering private to the nearby Jacob Schwartz Farm and left him in a barn before returning to duty.

Several days later, volunteer nurse Mary Morris Husband discovered Hilt in the barn and, as she later wrote to his mother, took an "interest" in him. The 42-year-old Husband-a Philadelphia native and granddaughter of Declaration of Independence signer Robert Morris-had worked as a volunteer nurse for the Army of the Potomac at Harrison's Landing, Va., in the summer of 1862, following the Peninsula Campaign-and after the subsequent battles of Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. On July 3, upon hearing of the fighting at Gettysburg, Husband again left her Philadelphia home to tend to the needs of "her boys." She arrived on the field the following day and began working at the Schwartz Farm, which served as the hospital for the 1st Division of the 3rd Corps.

On July 17, Peter Hilt died of his wounds. One month later, Husband, by now back in Philadelphia and herself suffering from a fever that she had contracted in the fetid atmosphere of the Schwartz Farm, sent the following letter to Sibylla.

I call you so because I was attached to your son. I have nothing of his but some hair, he probably lost everything on the battlefield. I took charge of some 300 wounded, principally Rebels, in a barn out houses, etc. and the under part of the barn. I spoke to your boy thinking him a confederate but one of the rebels said "do try & get that fellow out of this place, he is very badly wounded & one of your men," so I at once went & got some boys to help me & carefully moved him to the piazza of a house nearby. He told me about you & said he "was anxious to get well on your account," so I became much interested in him & urged the surgeons to examine the wound, but they pronounced it hopeless.

I was not satisfied however, and the following day, Dr. Hays, Surg. In Charge of 1st Div. Hosp. came over & I got him to examine he said there was a hope, if he could get him over to the Hosp. to operate on him. I got my boys to carry him on a stretcher, & Dr. H. operated himself, laying open the leg & removing the crushed pieces of bone (the leg was fractured too high up for amputation.) I went to see him the next day & he was doing nicely, everything favorable, & was very grateful to me for accomplishing what I did, as well as getting him in more comfortable quarters. I promised to come & see him as often as possible, but was half a mile from him with a creek between that rose rapidly & cut me off whenever it rained, so I did not see him but once afterward, still doing well, but the weather became warmer & mortification set in, he died very easily, I heard for I knew nothing of it, until all was over, when one of the boys came to tell me & I sent for some of his hair not even having time to go & see him. You have no idea how hard we have to work, after a battle. There are so many who need help & so few to give it, that those who go as I do [volunteer nurse] have scarce time to attend to individual cases or to remember them-but your son particularly interested me & therefore I saved his hair for you & knowing a Mothers feelings knew that you would like to have as much of an account as I can give you it is not much but shews he did not die without an effort to save him, as alas! many of our brave boys do.

He had comfortable food & good nursing during his last days & you may yet obtain more particulars about him, as there were some of his own Regt. in the same ward.

On September 22, 1863, Sibylla Hilt filed for a pension with the federal government, using as part of her evidence the above letter from Mary Husband. In March 1864, her pension request was granted and she began receiving $8 a month, the maximum amount then allowed under the law. Today, the remains of Peter Hilt, the sole support of his widowed mother, lie in Grave B-48 of the Pennsylvania section of the Gettysburg National Cemetery. Sibylla died in early 1894; by that time, her monthly government stipend had increased to $12.

Husband managed to recover from her illness and returned to nursing with the army in the winter of 1863, serving in assorted military hospitals for the rest of the war. She died in Philadelphia on March 3, 1894.

Serving With Honor

Charles McAnally, who was born May 12, 1836, in Ireland and came to the United States in 1852, served with the 69th Pennsylvania Infantry until the end of the war, eventually rising to the rank of captain.

He incurred cuts and gunshot wounds to his left shoulder, head, and face at the May 1864 Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, Va., early in Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's Overland Campaign. McAnally suffered additional wounds to his leg at the horrific Battle of Cold Harbor less than a month later. McAnally's Medal of Honor citation for the Spotsylvania fighting reads: "In a hand-to-hand encounter with the enemy captured a flag, was wounded in the act, but continued on duty until he received a second wound."

On July 28, 1897, McAnally received notification that President William McKinley had approved him for the Medal of Honor. Charles McAnally, aged 69, died on August 8, 1905. -J.S.

Sergeant James Hand
69th Pennsylvania
2nd Brigade ("Philadelphia Brigade")
2nd Division, 2nd Corps

In July 1860, a federal census taker visited a dwelling at 1319 N. 16th St. in Philadelphia and recorded that a married immigrant couple from Ireland-James and Jane Hand, ages 25 and 24, respectively-resided there with their two daughters, 3-year-old Lucy and a newborn named Mary Jane. James, who worked as a printer, had only $100 of personal property. A little more than a year later, he left behind his wife and young children and enlisted in Company D of the 69th Pennsylvania to fight for his new country.

On July 3, 1863, Company D was posted in the right-center of the 69th's line of battle on Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg, located just in front of a small cluster of oak trees-the now-famous "Copse of Trees." Hand, by then a sergeant, was killed instantly during the brutal combat that raged that afternoon at the height of Pickett's Charge. Initially interred on the G. Herting (or Herling) Farm, the present resting place of Hand's remains is unknown.

Two days after the battle, Lieutenant Charles McAnally, a fellow Irish immigrant, company-mate, and close friend, wrote the following letter to Hand's wife:

It is a painful task for me to Communicate the sad fate of your husband (my own Comrade) he was killed on the 3rd inst he received a ball through the breast & one through the heart & never spoke after. I was in Command of the Skremeshers about one mile to the front & every inch of ground was well contested untill I reached our Regt. the rebels made the attack in 3 lines of Battle as soon as I reached our line I met James he ran & met me with a canteen of watter I was near palayed he said I was foolish dident let them come at once that the ol 69th was waiting for them I threw off my Coat & in 2 minutes we were at it hand to hand they charged us twice & we repulsed them they then tried the Regt on our Right & drove them which caused us to Swing back our right then charged them on their left flank & in the charge James fell may the Lord have mercy on his Soul he never flinched from his post & was loved by all who knew him he was intered along side of Sergt James McCabe Sergt Jeremiah Gallagher of our Co & 5 others of our Co that you are not acquainted with our Co lost in killed wounded & missing Twenty as follows killed 8 wounded 10 & missing 2 although we fought the Rebels 10 to one on the 2nd & killed or captured a whol Corps our Co had only one man wounded that day the loss in the battle of the 3rd was heavy but all did not discourage the boys we were determined that as long as a man lived he would stand to be killed too rather than have it said that we left on the battle field in Pennsylvania the Laurels that we so dearly won in Strange States the loss in the Regt killed wounded & missing was one hundred & fifty eight & our Colonell & Lieut Colonell & 2 Capts Duffy & Thompson killed & Lieut Kelly & 6 officers wounded we killed 6 Rebel Generals & nearly all the line officers & killed or captured every man that attacted us & both days fighting there was never a battle fought with more determination in the first days fight the Rebels had our battery on the first charge & we retook it again Mrs Hand please excuse this letter as I am confused & I hope you will take your trouble with patience you know that God is mercifull & good to his own no one living this day was more attached than Jas & my self when I was engaged in front he wanted to get out to my assistance I lost a loyal comrade in him no more at present from your Sorrowing friend

P.S. this letter will answer for Sergt McCabe he was shot through the head he died in 2 minutes after McCabe had 35 cents of money & $20 he lent to Lieut Fay of our Co. C. M. A. we got no mail since the 19th until the rebs retreated last night

Jane Hand filed for a survivor's pension with the federal government on July 18, 1863. A week later, the new widow gave birth to her third child, a son she named James Charles. It took six months for her pension request to be granted. She then began receiving the sum of $8 per month, plus an additional $2 each per month for her three children, backdated to the date of her husband's death.

Heartbreak continued to stalk the family, however, as the infant died from unknown causes in February 1864, and the Hand family pension was reduced by $2 per month. The records in the Hand pension file end with that tragedy.
Jeffrey Stocker, a retired attorney, is the author of three books on the Civil War. His most recent is "We Fought Desperate": A History of the 153rd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry Regiment.
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Killed at Gettysburg: Letters reveal pain of those left behind

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In the weeks following the July 1863 Battle of Gettysburg, tens of thousands of families waited anxiously for word of the fate of their loved ones and friends serving in the contending armies. Had they been killed in the fighting? Had they survived only to suffer from agonizing wounds in crude, makeshift hospitals?

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Appomattox Court House National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service)

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On April 9, 1865, the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia in the McLean House in the village of Appomattox Court House, Virginia signaled the end of the nation's largest war. Two important questions about its future were answered. Could the nation survive a civil war intact, and would that nation exist without slavery?

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Wade-Davis Bill: Wade-Davis Bill, (1864), unsuccessful attempt by Radical Republicans and others in the U.S. Congress to set Reconstruction policy before the end of the Civil War. The bill, sponsored by senators Benjamin F. Wade and Henry W. Davis, provided for the appointment of provisional military governors in

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Plessy v.s. Ferguson/ The end of reconstruction

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Plessy v.s. Ferguson/ The end of reconstruction

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Plessy v. Ferguson: Background and Context

After the Compromise of 1877 led to the withdrawal of federal troops from the South, Democrats consolidated control of state legislatures throughout the region, effectively marking the end of Reconstruction.

Southern Black people saw the promise of equality under the law embodied by the 13th Amendment, 14th Amendment and 15th Amendment to the Constitution receding quickly, and a return to disenfranchisement and other disadvantages as white supremacy reasserted itself across the South.

As historian C. Vann Woodward pointed out in a 1964 article about Plessy v. Ferguson, white and Black Southerners mixed relatively freely until the 1880s, when state legislatures passed the first laws requiring railroads to provide separate cars for "Negro" or "colored" passengers.

Florida became the first state to mandate segregated railroad cars in 1887, followed in quick succession by Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana and other states by the end of the century.

Black Resistance to Segregation

As Southern Black people witnessed with horror the dawn of the Jim Crow era, members of the Black community in New Orleans decided to mount a resistance.

At the heart of the case that became Plessy v. Ferguson was a law passed in Louisiana in 1890 "providing for separate railway carriages for the white and colored races." It stipulated that all passenger railways had to provide these separate cars, which should be equal in facilities.

Homer Adolph Plessy, who agreed to be the plaintiff in the case aimed at testing the law's constitutionality, was of mixed race; he described himself as "seven-eighths Caucasian and one-eighth African blood."

On June 7, 1892, Plessy bought a ticket on a train from New Orleans bound for Covington, Louisiana, and took a vacant seat in a whites-only car. After refusing to leave the car at the conductor's insistence, he was arrested and jailed.

Convicted by a New Orleans court of violating the 1890 law, Plessy filed a petition against the presiding judge, Hon. John H. Ferguson, claiming that the law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Supreme Court Ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson

Over the next few years, segregation and Black disenfranchisement picked up pace in the South, and was more than tolerated by the North. Congress defeated a bill that would have given federal protection to elections in 1892, and nullified a number of Reconstruction laws on the books.

Then, on May 18, 1896, the Supreme Court delivered its verdict in Plessy v. Ferguson. In declaring separate-but-equal facilities constitutional on intrastate railroads, the Court ruled that the protections of 14th Amendment applied only to political and civil rights (like voting and jury service), not "social rights" (sitting in the railroad car of your choice).

In its ruling, the Court denied that segregated railroad cars for Black people were necessarily inferior. "We consider the underlying fallacy of [Plessy's] argument," Justice Henry Brown wrote, "to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it."

John Marshall Harlan's Dissent

Alone in the minority was Justice John Marshall Harlan, a former slaveholder from Kentucky. Harlan had opposed emancipation and civil rights for freed slaves during the Reconstruction era-but changed his position due to his outrage over the actions of white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

Harlan argued in his dissent that segregation ran counter to the constitutional principle of equality under the law: "The arbitrary separation of citizens on the basis of race while they are on a public highway is a badge of servitude wholly inconsistent with the civil freedom and the equality before the law established by the Constitution," he wrote. "It cannot be justified upon any legal grounds."

Plessy v. Ferguson Significance

The Plessy v. Ferguson verdict enshrined the doctrine of "separate but equal" as a constitutional justification for segregation, ensuring the survival of the Jim Crow South for the next half-century.

Intrastate railroads were among many segregated public facilities the verdict sanctioned; others included buses, hotels, theaters, swimming pools and schools. By the time of the 1899 case Cummings v. Board of Education, even Harlan appeared to agree that segregated public schools did not violate the Constitution.

It would not be until the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, at the dawn of the civil rights movement, that the majority of the Supreme Court would essentially concur with Harlan's opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson..

Writing the majority opinion in that 1954 case, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote that "the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place" in public education, calling segregated schools "inherently unequal," and declaring that the plaintiffs in the Brown case were being "deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment."

Sources

C. Vann Woodward, " Plessy v. Ferguson: The Birth of Jim Crow," American Heritage (Volume 15, Issue 3: April 1964).
Landmark Cases: Plessy v. Ferguson, PBS: The Supreme Court - The First Hundred Years.
Louis Menand, "Brown v. Board of Education and the Limits of Law," The New Yorker (February 12, 2001).
Today in History - May 18: Plessy v. Ferguson, Library of Congress.

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Plessy v. Ferguson: Separate But Equal Doctrine | HISTORY

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Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the "separate but equal" doctrine.

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The California Gold Rush cartoon 1849 (The Wild West)

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History and Culture - Homestead National Monument of America (U.S. National Park Service)

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Wounded Knee, located on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, was the site of two conflicts between Native Americans and representatives of the U.S. government, including the U.S. Army and, later, the FBI. An 1890 massacre left some 150 Native Americans dead, in what was the final clash between federal troops and the Sioux tribe. In 1973, members of the American Indian Movement occupied Wounded Knee for 71 days to protest conditions on the reservation.

Ghost Dance and Sitting Bull

Throughout 1890, the U.S. government was worried about the increasing influence at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of the Ghost Dance spiritual movement, which taught that Native Americans had been defeated and confined to reservations because they had angered the gods by abandoning their traditional customs.

Many Sioux believed that if they practiced the Ghost Dance and rejected the ways of the white man, the gods would create the world anew and destroy all non-believers, including non-Indians. On December 15, 1890, reservation police tried to arrest Sitting Bull, the famous Sioux chief, whom they mistakenly believed was a Ghost Dancer, and killed him in the process, increasing the tensions at Pine Ridge in South Dakota.

Did you know? Nearly half of the Sioux killed at the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre were women and children.

Wounded Knee Massacre

On December 29, the U.S. Army's 7th Cavalry surrounded a band of Ghost Dancers under Big Foot, a Lakota Sioux chief, near Wounded Knee Creek and demanded they surrender their weapons. As that was happening, a fight broke out between an Indian and a U.S. soldier and a shot was fired, although it's unclear from which side.

A brutal massacre followed, in which an estimated 150 Indians were killed. (Some historians put this number at twice as high.) Nearly half of them were women and children. The U.S. cavalry lost 25 men.

The conflict at Wounded Knee was originally referred to as a battle-the Army troops involved were later rewarded with Medals of Honor-but in reality it was a tragic and avoidable massacre. Surrounded by heavily armed troops, it's unlikely that Big Foot's band would have intentionally started a fight. Some historians speculate that the soldiers of the 7th Cavalry were deliberately taking revenge for the regiment's defeat at Little Bighorn in 1876.

Whatever the motives, the massacre ended the Ghost Dance movement and was one of the last major confrontations in the Indian Wars, America's deadly series of wars against the Plains Indians and other Native Americans.

American Indian Movement

The American Indian Movement (AIM) was founded in 1968 in an effort to stop police harassment of Indians in the Minneapolis area. Borrowing some tactics from the Vietnam war protests of the era, AIM soon gained national notoriety for its flamboyant demonstrations. However, many mainstream Indian leaders denounced the youth-dominated group as too radical.

In 1972, a faction of AIM members led by Dennis Banks and Leonard Peltier sought to close the divide by making alliances with traditional tribal elders on reservations. They had their greatest success on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, after a group of young white men murdered a Sioux man named Yellow Thunder.

Although Yellow Thunder's attackers received only six-year prison sentences, this was widely seen as a victory by the local Sioux accustomed to unfair treatment by the often racist judicial system. AIM's highly visible publicity campaign on the case was given considerable credit for the verdict, winning the organization a great deal of respect on the reservation.

Wounded Knee Siege

AIM's growing prestige and influence, however, threatened the conservative Sioux tribal chairman, Dick Wilson. When Wilson learned of a planned AIM protest against his administration at Pine Ridge, he retreated to tribal headquarters where he was under the protection of federal marshals and Bureau of Indian Affairs police.

Rather than confront the police in Pine Ridge, some 200 AIM members and their supporters decided to occupy the symbolically significant hamlet of Wounded Knee, site of the 1890 massacre. Wilson, with the backing of the federal government, responded by besieging Wounded Knee.

During the 71 days of the siege, which began on February 27, 1973, federal officers and AIM members exchanged gunfire almost nightly. Hundreds of arrests were made, and two Native Americans were killed and a federal marshal was permanently paralyzed by a bullet wound.

The leaders of AIM finally surrendered on May 8 after a negotiated settlement was reached. In a subsequent trial, the judge ordered their acquittal because of evidence that the FBI had manipulated key witnesses. AIM emerged victorious and succeeded in shining a national spotlight on the problems of modern Native Americans.

Trouble Continues at Pine Ridge

The troubles at Wounded Knee, however, were not over after the siege. A virtual civil war broke out between the opposing Indian factions on the Pine Ridge reservation, and a series of beatings, shootings and murders left more than 100 Indians dead. When two FBI agents were killed in a 1975 gunfight, the agency raided the reservation and arrested AIM leader Leonard Peltier for the crime.

The FBI crackdown coupled with AIM's own excesses ended its influence at Pine Ridge. In 1977, Peltier was convicted of killing the two FBI agents and sentenced to life in prison. To this day, Peltier's supporters continue to maintain his innocence and seek a presidential pardon for him.

And in 2021, members of the U.S. Congress petitioned President Joe Biden to revoke the Medals of Honor soldiers received for their participation in the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre.

HISTORY Vault: Native American History

Sources

Disaster at Wounded Knee. Library of Congress.
What really happened at Wounded Knee, the site of a historic massacre. National Geographic.
Warren, Merkley, Kahele Lead Bicameral Letter Urging Biden to Rescind Medals of Honor Awarded to Soldiers who Perpetrated Wounded Knee Massacre. Elizabeth Warren, U.S. Senate.
Wounded Knee Massacre. Encyclopedia of the Great Plains.

Fact Check

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Wounded Knee: Massacre, Memorial & Battle - HISTORY

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Wounded Knee in South Dakota was the site of an 1890 Indian massacre by U.S. Army troops, and a deadly 1973 occupation by Native American activists.

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https://www.pbs.org/video/the-civil-war-the-civil-war-fort-sumter/

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https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/emancipation-proclamation

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http://www.historynet.com/killed-gettysburg.htm

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https://www.nps.gov/apco/index.htm

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=LSYqJSD4_Aw

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https://www.britannica.com/event/Wade-Davis-Bill

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Plessy v.s. Ferguson/ The End of Reconstruction

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Plessy v.s. Ferguson/ The End of Reconstruction

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https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/plessy-v-ferguson

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iydRkC0gMZI

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https://www.nps.gov/home/learn/historyculture/index.htm

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https://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/wounded-knee

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"If a Western Rip Van Winkle had fallen asleep in 1869 and awakened in 1896, he would not have recognized the lands that the railroads had touched. Bison had yielded to cattle; mountains had been blasted and bored. Great swaths of land that had once whispered grass now screamed corn and wheat. Nation-states had conquered Indian peoples, slaughtering some of them and confining and controlling most of them. Population had increased across much of this vast region, and there were growing cities along its edges. A land that had once run largely north-south now ran east-west. Each change could have been traced back to the railroads." - Richard White, Railroaded

Unprecedented Urbanization

Between 1820 and 1860, the visual map of the United States was transformed by unprecedented urbanization and rapid territorial expansion. These changes mutually fueled the Second Industrial Revolution which peaked between 1870 and 1914. Between the annexation of Texas (1845), the British retreat from Oregon country, and The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo (1848) which cemented Mexican cession of the Southwest to the United States, territorial expansion exponentially rewrote the competing visions free-soilers, European immigrants, industrial capitalists, and Native Americans held for the future of the American Empire.

Need for Railroads

The need for massive industry was obvious: in order to reach California's burgeoning port cities like San Francisco and to expedite the extraction of gold from the mines, railroad tracks would need to be laid across the plains to reach the Pacific and open up trade networks. Questions abounded about the character this new American territory would take: would it be reliant on slave labor and fulfill Jefferson's original vision of an agrarian republic? Would corporations or the federal government lay down the required infrastructure to 'tame the West'? Still, others wondered if turning over the bison laden Plains to New York based corporations would stifle the American dream for America's second and third sons. Still, others believed the technological innovations of the Second Industrial Revolution was the unstoppable culmination of modern civilization propelling the fulfillment of Manifest Destiny. Questions of this nature were not new in American history. Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, Americans were forced to adjust to the implications of the First Industrial Revolution. 1750 to 1850 marked a century of heightened industrial activity centered around textiles. After the invention of steam power and the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793, cotton could be shipped from the American South by New England ships to the vast textile factories of Great Britain, producing a reverse triangle trade around a single global commodity. These developments were hailed by some as "progress," but the pace, scale, and reliance of slave labor on these developments instilled in others a great sense of anxiety and fear.

Although the economic and social problems of the first Industrial Revolution distressed many, these concerns were set aside during the nation's bloody Civil War (1861-1865).

The following maps demonstrate the advancement of the railroad before the Civil War (as always, click to enlarge image):

American Economic Growth

In the aftermath of the Civil War and Reconstruction, the American economy grew considerably as it entered "The Second Industrial Revolution," generally recognized as the period between 1870 and 1914. The U.S. was awash in an abundance of natural resources from its newly acquired territories, a growing supply of labor immigrating from Europe, and the migration of emancipated African Americans North and West, an expanding market for manufactured goods, and the availability of capital for investment.

The Second Industrial Revolution took local communities and their new products out of the shadow of large regional agricultural based economies which was assisted by new labor forces and production techniques. During the Second Industrial Revolution, innovations in transportation, such as roads, steamboats, the Eerie Canal, and most notably railroads, linked distant, previously isolated communities together.

Transporting Products

For the first time, goods from the American interior could be shipped directly to the Atlantic, and vice versa. Being able to ship products great distances transformed the nature of economic activity in the United States. Before the development of this elaborate transportation and communication system, economies were localized and often based on a barter system. The transportation revolution opened up new markets for farmers, industrialists, and bankers who could now bring crops cotton in the Mississippi River Valley, wheat in the Midwest, and manufactured goods in upstate New York into a global market based on credit. Similarly, the expansion of the railroad brought a dramatic reduction in the time and money it took to move heavy goods, creating new opportunities for wealth at a time when two-thirds of all Americans still resided on farms.

Government Involvement

The federal government actively participated in this growth by promoting industrial and agricultural development. High tariffs were enacted to protect American industry from foreign competition, land was granted to railroad companies to encourage construction, and the army was employed to forcibly remove Indians from western land desired by farmers and mining companies. The rapid growth of factory production, mining, and railroad construction all boosted the new industrial economy and stood in stark contrast to the previous small farm and artisan workshop economy of the pre-Civil War era.

By 1913, the United States produced one-third of the world's industrial out put-more than the total of Great Britain, France, and Germany combined. The living standards and the purchasing power of money increased rapidly, as new technologies played an ever-increasing role in the daily lives of working- and middle-class citizens. Between 1870 and 1920, almost 11 million Americans moved from farm to city, and another 25 million immigrants arrived from overseas. By 1920, for the first time in American history, the census revealed more people lived in cities than on farms.

Interconnected Growth

Inventions during the Second Industrial Revolution were interconnected. The railroad spurred the growth of the telegraph machine. Telegraph lines and railroad lines inextricably bound together as telegraph polls dotted the distance of railroad lines. The telegraph, and later the telephone, ushered in the era of instant communication and brought about, in the words of cultural historian Stephen Kern, "the annihilation of distance." This was a profound change for Americans. The "local" shot outward to the "national" and even "international" as a new sense of world unity was established through these new technologies. These technologies also increased the pace of life and the manner in which people worked and lived.

Major Technological Advances of the Second Industrial Revolution:

* 1870s - Automatic signals, air brakes, and knuckle couplers on the railroads; the Bessemer and then the open-hearth process in the steel mills; the telephone, electric light, and typewriter.
* 1880s - The elevator and structural steel for buildings, leading to the first "skyscrapers."
* 1890s - The phonograph and motion pictures; the electric generator, contributing to modern household items such as refrigerators and washing machines and gradually replaced water and steam powered engines; and the internal combustion engine, which made possible the first automobiles and the first airplane flight by the Wright brothers in 1903.

Unstable Growth

The economic growth during this time period was extraordinary but unstable. The world economy experienced harsh depressions in 1873 and again in 1897. Businesses competed intensely with each other and corporations battled to gain control of industries. Countless companies failed and others were bought up by larger corporations which eventually ruled the marketplace.

For those who were able to capitalize on these technological advancements, the Second Industrial Revolution was highly profitable. During the Depression of 1873, the soon-to-be industry giant, Andrew Carnegie established a steel company which controlled every phase of business from raw materials to transportation, manufacturing, and distribution.

Carnegie Fortune

By the 1890s, Carnegie dominated the steel industry and had accumulated a fortune worth millions. His steel factories were the most technologically advanced in the world, although this honor came at a price for his workers. Carnegie ran his companies with a dictatorial hand; his factories operated around the clock and workers were burdened with long hours. Yet, at the same time, Carnegie believed that the rich had a moral obligation to promote the advancement of society and he distributed much of his wealth to various philanthropies, especially towards the creation of public libraries throughout the country.

Like Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller also accumulated enormous amounts of wealth, although his came through domination of the oil industry.

Beating the Competition

Rockefeller annihilated rival oil firms through committed competition, secret deals with railroad companies, and fixed prices and production quotas. He bought out competing oil refineries and managed all aspects of the operation, including drilling, refining, storage, and distribution. Before long, Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company controlled a majority of the nation's oil industry. Like Carnegie, Rockefeller publicly supported a number of philanthropies, yet privately domineered over his workers and bitterly fought their efforts to organize and unionize.

The Second Industrial Revolution fueled the Gilded Age, a period of great extremes: great wealth and widespread poverty, great expansion and deep depression, new opportunities and greater standardization. Economic insecurity became a basic way of life as the depressions of the 1870s and 1890s put millions out of work or reduced pay. Those who remained in the industrial line of work experienced extremely dangerous working conditions, long hours, no compensation for injuries, no pensions, and low wages. But for a limited minority of workers, the industrial system established new forms of freedom. Skilled workers received high wages in industrial work and oversaw a great deal of the production process. Economic independence now required a technical skill rather than ownership of one's own shop and tools. It was labeled "progress" by its proponents, but those who worked the floor at the factory knew it came at a price.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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The Second Industrial Revolution, 1870-1914 - US History Scene

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"If a Western Rip Van Winkle had fallen asleep in 1869 and awakened in 1896, he would not have recognized the lands that the railroads had touched. Bison had yielded to cattle; mountains had been blasted and bored. Great swaths of land that had once whispered grass now screamed corn and wheat.

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History of the Light Bulb | Lighting Basics | Bulbs.com

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Did Thomas Edison invent the first light bulb? Here you’ll find a brief history of the light bulb as well as a timeline of notable dates in lighting history.

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Unlike many other major inventions, the original idea of the automobile cannot be attributed to a single individual. The idea certainly occurred long before it was first recorded in the Iliad, in which Homer (in Alexander Pope 's translation) states that Vulcan in a single day made 20 tricycles, which

Leonardo da Vinci considered the idea of a self-propelled vehicle in the 15th century. In 1760 a Swiss clergyman, J.H. Genevois, suggested mounting small windmills on a cartlike vehicle, their power to be used to wind springs that would move the road wheel. Genevois's idea probably derived from a windmill cart of about 1714. Two-masted wind carriages were running in the Netherlands in 1600, and a speed of 20 miles (30 km) per hour with a load of 28 passengers was claimed for at least one of them. The first recorded suggestion of wind use was probably Robert Valturio's unrealized plan (1472) for a cart powered by windmills geared to the wheels.

Other inventors considered the possibilities of clockwork. Probably in 1748 a carriage propelled by a large clockwork engine was demonstrated in Paris by the versatile inventor Jacques de Vaucanson.

The air engine is thought to have originated with a 17th-century German physicist, Otto von Guericke. Guericke invented an air pump and was probably the first to make metal pistons, cylinders, and connecting rods, the basic components of the reciprocating engine. In the 17th century a Dutch inventor, Christiaan Huygens, produced an engine that worked by air pressure developed by explosion of a powder charge. Denis Papin of France built a model engine on the vacuum principle, using the condensation of steam to produce the vacuum. An air engine was patented in England in 1799, and a grid of compressor stations was proposed to service vehicles. An air-powered vehicle is said to have been produced in 1832.

Steam propulsion was proposed as early as the 16th century, and in 1678 Ferdinand Verbiest, a Belgian Jesuit missionary to China, made a model steam carriage based on a principle suggestive of the modern turbine.

In the 18th century a French scientist, Philippe Lebon, patented a coal-gas engine and made the first suggestion of electrical ignition. In Paris, Isaac de Rivas made a gas-powered vehicle in 1807; his engine used hydrogen gas as fuel, the valves and ignition were operated by hand, and the timing problem appears to have been difficult.

The age of steam

Most historians agree that Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot of France was the constructor of the first true automobile. Cugnot's vehicle was a huge, heavy, steam-powered tricycle, and his model of 1769 was said to have run for 20 minutes at 2.25 miles (3.6 km) per hour while carrying four people and to have recuperated sufficient steam power to move again after standing for 20 minutes. Cugnot was an artillery officer, and the more or less steam-tight pistons of his engine were made possible by the invention of a drill that accurately machined cannon bores. A replica of Cugnot's second vehicle, partially original, is preserved in the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers in Paris.

Cugnot's successors were soon at work, notably in England, although the first post-Cugnot steam carriage appears to have been built in Amiens, France, in 1790. Steam buses were running in Paris about 1800. Oliver Evans of Philadelphia ran an amphibious steam dredge through the streets of that city in 1805. Less well known were Nathan Read of Salem, Massachusetts, and Apollos Kinsley of Hartford, Connecticut, both of whom ran steam vehicles during the period 1790-1800. In March 1863 the magazine Scientific American described tests of a vehicle that weighed only 650 pounds (about 300 kg) and achieved a speed of 20 miles (30 km) per hour. Another American, Frank Curtis of Newburyport, Massachusetts, is remembered for building a personal steam carriage to the order of a Boston man who failed to meet the payment schedule, whereupon Curtis made the first recorded repossession of a motor vehicle.

English inventors were active, and by the 1830s the manufacture and use of steam road carriages was flourishing. James Watt's foreman, William Murdock, ran a model steam carriage on the roads of Cornwall in 1784, and Robert Fourness showed a working three-cylinder tractor in 1788. Watt was opposed to the use of steam engines for such purposes; his low-pressure steam engine would have been too bulky for road use in any case, and all the British efforts in steam derived from the earlier researches of Thomas Savery and Thomas Newcomen.

Richard Trevithick developed Murdock's ideas, and at least one of his carriages, with driving wheels 10 feet (3 metres) in diameter, ran in London. Sir Goldsworthy Gurney, the first commercially successful steam carriage builder, based his design upon an unusually efficient boiler. He was not, however, convinced that smooth wheels could grip a roadway, and so he arranged propulsion on his first vehicle by iron legs digging into the road surface. His second vehicle weighed only 3,000 pounds (1,360 kg) and was said to be capable of carrying six persons. He made trips as long as 84 miles (135 km) in a running time of 9 hours and 30 minutes and once recorded a speed of 17 miles (27 km) per hour.

Gurney equipment was used on the Gloucester-Cheltenham service of four daily round trips; under favourable conditions the equipment could complete the 9 miles (15 km) in 45 minutes. Between February 27 and June 22, 1831, steam coaches ran 4,000 miles (6,400 km) on this route, carrying some 3,000 passengers. The equipment was noisy, smoky, destructive of roadways, and admittedly dangerous; hostility arose, and it was common for drivers to find the way blocked with heaps of stones or felled trees. Nevertheless, numerous passengers had been carried by steam carriage before the railways had accepted their first paying passenger.

The most successful era of the steam coaches in Britain was the 1830s. Ambitious routes were run, including one from London to Cambridge. But by 1840 it was clear that the steam carriages had little future. They had much to contend with, including the anti-machinery attitude of the public and the enmity of the horse-coach interests, which resulted in such penalties as a charge of £5 for passing a tollgate that cost a horse coach only three pence. The crushing blow was the Locomotives on Highways Act of 1865, which reduced permissible speeds on public roads to 2 miles (3 km) per hour within cities and 4 miles (6 km) per hour in rural areas. This legislation was known as the Red Flag Act because of its requirement that every steam carriage mount a crew of three, one to precede it carrying a red flag of warning. The act was amended in 1878, but it was not repealed until 1896, by which time its provisions had effectively stifled the development of road transport in the British Isles.

The decline of the steam carriage did not prevent continued effort in the field, and much attention was given to the steam tractor for use as a prime mover. Beginning about 1868, Britain was the scene of a vogue for light steam-powered personal carriages; if the popularity of these vehicles had not been legally hindered, it would certainly have resulted in widespread enthusiasm for motoring in the 1860s rather than in the 1890s. Some of the steamers could carry as few as two people and were capable of speeds of 20 miles (32 km) per hour. The public climate remained unfriendly, however.

Light steam cars were being built in the United States, France, Germany, and Denmark during the same period, and it is possible to argue that the line from Cugnot's lumbering vehicle runs unbroken to the 20th-century steam automobiles made as late as 1926. The grip of the steam automobile on the American imagination has been strong ever since the era of the Stanley brothers -one of whose "steamers" took the world speed record at 127.66 miles (205.45 km) per hour in 1906. The car designed by them and sold as the Locomobile became the first commercially successful American-made automobile (about 1,000 were built in 1900). It is estimated that in the early 21st century there were still some 600 steam cars in the United States, most of them in running order.

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Automobile - Invention, Evolution, Impact

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Automobile - Invention, Evolution, Impact: Unlike many other major inventions, the original idea of the automobile cannot be attributed to a single individual. The idea certainly occurred long before it was first recorded in the Iliad, in which Homer (in Alexander Pope's translation) states that Vulcan in a single day made 20 tricycles, which Leonardo da Vinci considered the idea of a self-propelled vehicle in the 15th century.

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Origins of The Labor Movement

The origins of the labor movement lay in the formative years of the American nation, when a free wage-labor market emerged in the artisan trades late in the colonial period. The earliest recorded strike occurred in 1768 when New York journeymen tailors protested a wage reduction. The formation of the Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers (shoemakers) in Philadelphia in 1794 marks the beginning of sustained trade union organization among American workers.
WATCH: The Labor Movement
From that time on, local craft unions proliferated in the cities, publishing lists of "prices" for their work, defending their trades against diluted and cheap labor and, increasingly, demanding a shorter workday in the face of the Industrial Revolution. Thus a job-conscious orientation was quick to emerge, and in its wake there followed the key structural elements characterizing American trade unionism. First, with the formation in 1827 of the Mechanics' Union of Trade Associations in Philadelphia, central labor bodies began uniting craft unions within a single city, and then, with the creation of the International Typographical Union in 1852, national unions began bringing together local unions of the same trade from across the United States and Canada (hence the frequent union designation "international"). Although the factory system was springing up during these years, industrial workers played little part in the early trade union development. In the 19th century, trade unionism was mainly a movement of skilled workers.

Did you know? In 2009, 12 percent of American workers belonged to unions.

Early Labor Unions

The early labor movement was, however, inspired by more than the immediate job interest of its craft members. It harbored a conception of the just society, deriving from the Ricardian labor theory of value and from the republican ideals of the American Revolution, which fostered social equality, celebrated honest labor, and relied on an independent, virtuous citizenship. The transforming economic changes of industrial capitalism ran counter to labor's vision. The result, as early labor leaders saw it, was to raise up "two distinct classes, the rich and the poor." Beginning with the workingmen's parties of the 1830s, the advocates of equal rights mounted a series of reform efforts that spanned the nineteenth century. Most notable were the National Labor Union, launched in 1866, and the Knights of Labor, which reached its zenith in the mid-1880s.

On their face, these reform movements might have seemed at odds with trade unionism, aiming as they did at the cooperative commonwealth rather than a higher wage, appealing broadly to all "producers" rather than strictly to wageworkers, and eschewing the trade union reliance on the strike and boycott. But contemporaries saw no contradiction: trade unionism tended to the workers' immediate needs, labor reform to their higher hopes. The two were held to be strands of a single movement, rooted in a common working-class constituency and to some degree sharing a common leadership. But equally important, they were strands that had to be kept operationally separate and functionally distinct.
PHOTOS: These Appalling Images Exposed Child Labor in America
American Federation of Labor

During the 1880s, that division fatally eroded. Despite its labor reform rhetoric, the Knights of Labor attracted large numbers of workers hoping to improve their immediate conditions. As the Knights carried on strikes and organized along industrial lines, the threatened national trade unions demanded that the group confine itself to its professed labor reform purposes. When it refused, they joined in December 1886 to form the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The new federation marked a break with the past, for it denied to labor reform any further role in the struggles of American workers. In part, the assertion of trade union supremacy stemmed from an undeniable reality. As industrialism matured, labor reform lost its meaning-hence the confusion and ultimate failure of the Knights of Labor. Marxism taught Samuel Gompers and his fellow socialists that trade unionism was the indispensable instrument for preparing the working class for revolution. The founders of theAFL translated this notion into the principle of "pure and simple" unionism: only by self-organization along occupational lines and by a concentration on job-conscious goals would the worker be "furnished with the weapons which shall secure his industrial emancipation."

That class formulation necessarily defined trade unionism as the movement of the entire working class. The AFL asserted as a formal policy that it represented all workers, irrespective of skill, race, religion, nationality or gender. But the national unions that had created the AFL in fact comprised only the skilled trades. Almost at once, therefore, the trade union movement encountered a dilemma: How to square ideological aspirations against contrary institutional realities?

Discrimination in The Labor Movement

As sweeping technological change began to undermine the craft system of production, some national unions did move toward an industrial structure, most notably in coal mining and the garment trades. But most craft unions either refused or, as in iron and steel and in meat-packing, failed to organize the less skilled. And since skill lines tended to conform to racial, ethnic and gender divisions, the trade union movement took on a racist and sexist coloration as well. For a short period, the AFL resisted that tendency. But in 1895, unable to launch an interracial machinists' union of its own, the Federation reversed an earlier principled decision and chartered the whites-only International Association of Machinists. Formally or informally, the color bar thereafter spread throughout the trade union movement. In 1902, blacks made up scarcely 3 percent of total membership, most of them segregated in Jim Crow locals. In the case of women and eastern European immigrants, a similar devolution occurred-welcomed as equals in theory, excluded or segregated in practice. (Only the fate of Asian workers was unproblematic; their rights had never been asserted by the AFLin the first place.)

Samuel Gompers

Gompers justified the subordination of principle to organizational reality on the constitutional grounds of "trade autonomy," by which each national union was assured the right to regulate its own internal affairs. But the organizational dynamism of the labor movement was in fact located in the national unions. Only as they experienced inner change might the labor movement expand beyond the narrow limits-roughly 10 percent of the labor force-at which it stabilized before World War I.

In the political realm, the founding doctrine of pure-and-simple unionism meant an arm's-length relationship to the state and the least possible entanglement in partisan politics. A total separation had, of course, never been seriously contemplated; some objectives, such as immigration restriction, could be achieved only through state action, and the predecessor to the AFL, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (1881), had in fact been created to serve as labor's lobbying arm in Washington. Partly because of the lure of progressive labor legislation, even more in response to increasingly damaging court attacks on the trade unions, political activity quickened after 1900. With the enunciation of Labor's Bill of Grievances (1906), the AFL laid down a challenge to the major parties. Henceforth it would campaign for its friends and seek the defeat of its enemies.

This nonpartisan entry into electoral politics, paradoxically, undercut the left-wing advocates of an independent working-class politics. That question had been repeatedly debated within theAFL, first in 1890 over Socialist Labor party representation, then in 1893-1894 over an alliance with the Populist Party and after 1901 over affiliation with the Socialist party of America. Although Gompers prevailed each time, he never found it easy. Now, as labor's leverage with the major parties began to pay off, Gompers had an effective answer to his critics on the left: the labor movement could not afford to waste its political capital on socialist parties or independent politics. When that nonpartisan strategy failed, as it did in the reaction following World War I, an independent political strategy took hold, first through the robust campaigning of the Conference for Progressive Political Action in 1922, and in 1924 through labor's endorsement of Robert La Follette on the Progressive ticket. By then, however, the Republican administration was moderating its hard line, evident especially in Herbert Hoover's efforts to resolve the simmering crises in mining and on the railroads. In response, the trade unions abandoned the Progressive party, retreated to nonpartisanship, and, as their power waned, lapsed into inactivity.

The Labor Movement and The Great Depression
WATCH: Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal
It took the Great Depression to knock the labor movement off dead center. The discontent of industrial workers, combined with New Deal collective bargaining legislation, at last brought the great mass production industries within striking distance. When the craft unions stymied the ALF's organizing efforts, John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers and his followers broke away in 1935 and formed the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO), which crucially aided the emerging unions in auto, rubber, steel and other basic industries. In 1938 the CIO was formally established as the Congress of Industrial Organizations. By the end of World War II, more than 12 million workers belonged to unions and collective bargaining had taken hold throughout the industrial economy.

In politics, its enhanced power led the union movement not to a new departure but to a variant on the policy of nonpartisanship. As far back as the Progressive Era, organized labor had been drifting toward the Democratic party, partly because of the latter's greater programmatic appeal, perhaps even more because of its ethno-cultural basis of support within an increasingly "new" immigrant working class. With the coming of Roosevelt's New Deal, this incipient alliance solidified, and from 1936 onward the Democratic Party could count on-and came to rely on-the campaigning resources of the labor movement.

Collective Bargaining

That this alliance partook of the nonpartisan logic of Gompers's authorship-too much was at stake for organized labor to waste its political capital on third parties-became clear in the unsettled period of the early cold war. Not only did theCIO oppose the Progressive party of 1948, but it expelled the left-wing unions that broke ranks and supported Henry Wallace for the presidency that year.

The formation of the AFL-CIOin 1955 visibly testified to the powerful continuities persisting through the age of industrial unionism. Above all, the central purpose remained what it had always been-to advance the economic and job interests of the union membership. Collective bargaining performed impressively after World War II, more than tripling weekly earnings in manufacturing between 1945 and 1970, gaining for union workers an unprecedented measure of security against old age, illness and unemployment, and, through contractual protections, greatly strengthening their right to fair treatment at the workplace. But if the benefits were greater and if they went to more people, the basic job-conscious thrust remained intact. Organized labor was still a sectional movement, covering at most only a third of America's wage earners and inaccessible to those cut off in the low-wage secondary labor market.

Women and Minorities in the Labor Movement

Nothing better captures the uneasy amalgam of old and new in the postwar labor movement than the treatment of minorities and women who flocked in, initially from the mass production industries, but after 1960 from the public and service sectors as well. Labor's historic commitment to racial and gender equality was thereby much strengthened, but not to the point of challenging the status quo within the labor movement itself. Thus the leadership structure remained largely closed to minorities-as did the skilled jobs that were historically the preserve of white male workers-notoriously so in the construction trades but in the industrial unions as well. Yet the AFL-CIOplayed a crucial role in the battle for civil rights legislation in 1964-1965. That this legislation might be directed against discriminatory trade union practices was anticipated (and quietly welcomed) by the more progressive labor leaders. But more significant was the meaning they found in championing this kind of reform: the chance to act on the broad ideals of the labor movement. And, so motivated, they deployed labor's power with great effect in the achievement of John F. Kennedy's and Lyndon B. Johnson 's domestic programs during the 1960s.

Decline in Unions

This was ultimately economic, not political power, however, and as organized labor's grip on the industrial sector began to weaken, so did its political capability. From the early 1970s onward, new competitive forces swept through the heavily unionized industries, set off by deregulation in communications and transportation, by industrial restructuring and by an unprecedented onslaught of foreign goods. As oligopolistic and regulated market structures broke down, nonunion competition spurted, concession bargaining became widespread and plant closings decimated union memberships. The once-celebrated National Labor Relations Act increasingly hamstrung the labor movement; an all-out reform campaign to get the law amended failed in 1978. And with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, there came to power an anti-union administration the likes of which had not been seen since the Harding era.

Between 1975 and 1985, union membership fell by 5 million. In manufacturing, the unionized portion of the labor force dropped below 25 percent, while mining and construction, once labor's flagship industries, were decimated. Only in the public sector did the unions hold their own. By the end of the 1980s, less than 17 percent of American workers were organized, half the proportion of the early 1950s.

The labor movement has never been swift to change. But if the new high-tech and service sectors seemed beyond its reach in 1989, so did the mass production industries in 1929. There is a silver lining: Compared to the old AFL, organized labor is today much more diverse and broadly based: In 2018, of the 14.7 million wage and salary workers who were part of a union (compared to 17.7 million in 1983), 25 percent are women and 28 percent are Black.

Sources

TED: The Economics Daily. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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The origins of the labor movement lay in the formative years of the American nation, when a free wage-labor market emerged in the artisan trades late in the colonial period. The earliest recorded strike occurred in 1768 when New York journeymen tailors protested a wage reduction.

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http://ushistoryscene.com/article/second-industrial-revolution/

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Inventions: Light bulb, Automobile, and Airplane

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Inventions: Light bulb, Automobile, and Airplane

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https://www.bulbs.com/learning/history.aspx

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https://www.britannica.com/technology/automobile/History-of-the-automobile\

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUe0TEdEVcU

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https://www.history.com/topics/19th-century/labor

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The Spanish-American War was an 1898 conflict between the United States and Spain that ended Spanish colonial rule in the Americas and resulted in U.S. acquisition of territories in the western Pacific and Latin America.

Causes: Remember the Maine!

The war originated in the Cuban struggle for independence from Spain, which began in February 1895.

Spain's brutally repressive measures to halt the rebellion were graphically portrayed for the U.S. public by several sensational newspapers engaging in yellow journalism, and American sympathy for the Cuban rebels rose.

Did you know? The term yellow journalism was coined in the 19th century to describe journalism that relies on eye-catching headlines, exaggeration and sensationalism to increase sales.

The growing popular demand for U.S. intervention became an insistent chorus after the still-unexplained sinking in Havana harbor of the American battleship USS Maine, which had been sent to protect U.S. citizens and property after anti-Spanish rioting in Havana.

War Is Declared

Spain announced an armistice on April 9 and speeded up its new program to grant Cuba limited powers of self-government.

But the U.S. Congress soon afterward issued resolutions that declared Cuba's right to independence, demanded the withdrawal of Spain's armed forces from the island, and authorized the use of force by President William McKinley to secure that withdrawal while renouncing any U.S. design for annexing Cuba.

Spain declared war on the United States on April 24, followed by a U.S. declaration of war on the 25th, which was made retroactive to April 21.

Spanish American War Begins

The ensuing war was pathetically one-sided, since Spain had readied neither its army nor its navy for a distant war with the formidable power of the United States.

In the early morning hours of May 1, 1898, Commodore George Dewey led a U.S. naval squadron into Manila Bay in the Philippines. He destroyed the anchored Spanish fleet in two hours before pausing the Battle of Manila Bay to order his crew a second breakfast. In total, fewer than 10 American seamen were lost, while Spanish losses were estimated at over 370. Manila itself was occupied by U.S. troops by August.

The elusive Spanish Caribbean fleet under Adm. Pascual Cervera was located in Santiago harbor in Cuba by U.S. reconnaissance. An army of regular troops and volunteers under Gen. William Shafter (including then-former assistant secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt and his 1st Volunteer Cavalry, the "Rough Riders") landed on the coast east of Santiago and slowly advanced on the city in an effort to force Cervera's fleet out of the harbor.

Cervera led his squadron out of Santiago on July 3 and tried to escape westward along the coast. In the ensuing battle all of his ships came under heavy fire from U.S. guns and were beached in a burning or sinking condition.

Santiago surrendered to Shafter on July 17, thus effectively ending the brief but momentous war.

Treaty of Paris

The Treaty of Paris ending the Spanish American War was signed on December 10, 1898. In it, Spain renounced all claim to Cuba, ceded Guam and Puerto Rico to the United States and transferred sovereignty over the Philippines to the United States for $20 million.

Philippine insurgents who had fought against Spanish rule soon turned their guns against their new occupiers. The Philippine-American War began in February of 1899 and lasted until 1902. Ten times more U.S. troops died suppressing revolts in the Philippines than in defeating Spain.

Impact of the Spanish-American War

The Spanish American War was an important turning point in the history of both antagonists. Spain's defeat decisively turned the nation's attention away from its overseas colonial adventures and inward upon its domestic needs, a process that led to both a cultural and a literary renaissance and two decades of much-needed economic development in Spain.

The victorious United States, on the other hand, emerged from the war a world power with far-flung overseas possessions and a new stake in international politics that would soon lead it to play a determining role in the affairs of Europe and the rest of the globe.

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

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Spanish-American War: Causes, Battles & Timeline | HISTORY

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The Spanish-American War was an 1898 conflict between the United States and Spain that ended Spanish colonial rule in the Americas.

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https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/spanish-american-war

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Growth, Cities, and Immigration: Crash Course US History #25

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRhjqqe750A

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Political Corruption and Progressive Government Reform

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Political Corruption and Progressive Government Reform

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Political Corruption and Progressive Government Reform

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Political Corruption and Progressive Government Reform

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Abolition, Women's Rights, and Temperance Movements - Women's Rights National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service)

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The early women's rights movement built upon the principles and experiences of other efforts to promote social justice and to improve the human condition. Collectively these efforts are known as reform. Among these were the Abolition and Temperance movements.The personal and historical relationships that came together, and at times split apart the movement for women's rights existed before 1848, have progressed over the subsequent century and a half.

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How was peace established at the end of World War I?

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How was peace established at the end of World War I?

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On January 18, 1919, in Paris, France, some of the most powerful people in the world meet to begin the long, complicated negotiations that would officially mark the end of the First World War.

Leaders of the victorious Allied powers-France, Great Britain, the United States and Italy-would make most of the crucial decisions in Paris over the next six months. For most of the conference, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson struggled to support his idea of a "peace without victory" and make sure that Germany, the leader of the Central Powers and the major loser of the war, was not treated too harshly. On the other hand, Prime Ministers Georges Clemenceau of France and David Lloyd George of Britain argued that punishing Germany adequately and ensuring its weakness was the only way to justify the immense costs of the war. In the end, Wilson compromised on the treatment of Germany in order to push through the creation of his pet project, an international peacekeeping organization called the League of Nations.
WATCH: Did WWI Lead to WWII?
Representatives from Germany were excluded from the peace conference until May, when they arrived in Paris and were presented with a draft of the Versailles Treaty. Having put great faith in Wilson's promises, the Germans were deeply frustrated and disillusioned by the treaty, which required them to forfeit a great deal of territory and pay reparations. Even worse, the infamous Article 231 forced Germany to accept sole blame for the war. This was a bitter pill many Germans could not swallow.

The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, five years to the day after a Serbian nationalist's bullet ended the life of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and sparked the beginning of World War I. In the decades to come, anger and resentment of the treaty and its authors festered in Germany. Extremists like Adolf Hitler's National Socialist (Nazi) Party capitalized on these emotions to gain power, a process that led almost directly to the exact thing Wilson and the other negotiators in Paris in 1919 had wanted to prevent-a second, equally devastating global war.
SEE MORE: World War I-in Color

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Post-World War I peace conference begins in Paris

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On January 18, 1919, in Paris, France, some of the most powerful people in the world meet to begin the long, complicated negotiations that would officially mark the end of the First World War. Leaders of the victorious Allied powers-France, Great Britain, the United States and Italy-would make most of the crucial decisions in Paris over the next six months.

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The Eighteenth Amendment is the only Amendment to ever have been repealed from the United States Constitution-via the inclusion of the Twenty-First Amendment. The 18th Amendment called for the banning of the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcoholic beverages. Known as national Prohibition, the Eighteenth Amendment banned "intoxicating liquors" with the exception of those used for religious rites.

It is also the first Amendment to impose a date by which it was to be ratified. If the deadline was not met, the Amendment would be discarded. The ratification of the 18th Amendment was completed on January 16th, 1919 and would take effect on January 17th, 1920.

It is important to note that the 18th Amendment did not prohibit the consumption of alcohol, but rather simply the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcoholic beverages. A result of the Temperance Movement, the concept of Prohibition had already been implemented by many states prior to the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment. Therefore, the 18th Amendment was quickly ratified into law.

The Temperance Movement would prove to become a powerful collection of individuals and factions that would garner a certain political power, which many politicians were afraid to confront. Church groups, the business elite, feminists, and political reformers were moving toward a dry society and began to call for a nation-wide law banning alcoholic substances.

Initially, Senators were against a Prohibition movement, but were also reluctant to vehemently vote against it. That is why a deadline was included within the proposal for the Eighteenth Amendment, calling for the ratification to be completed within seven years. However, this provision would not prove to be effective, for forty-four states approved the 18th Amendment in just over a year's time from its introduction.

The reluctance of the political powers also was reflected in imposing the effect of the Eighteenth Amendment a year from the completion of the ratification process. They did so in order to provide the liquor industry some time to adjust to what would essentially decimate the industry for the following ten years.

The implications of the 18th Amendment proved to be more negative than positive, for the effects took a turn for the worse rather than providing for a "dry" utopia. It was during the Prohibition Era that gave rise to organized crime in the United States, where criminals began to find illegal means to provide for the demand for alcohol. The creation of the mafia and mobsters led to a period of violence that would make the Government evaluate which was the greatest of two evils: alcohol or organized crime factions.

The Volstead Act, a bill that was introduced to provide for definition of terms used in the Eighteenth Amendment was passed on January 17th, 1920, after Congress overrode the veto by President Wilson. The Volstead Act defined an intoxicating liquor as any beverage containing more than 0.5 percent alcohol. Beer and wine would also be banned as a result, which led to much controversy as well.

Further provisions would be enacted as a result of the Eighteenth Amendment, such as the restriction of medicinal liquor prescriptions, allowing searches without warrants in automobiles, and wiretapping of telephones for surveillance of illegal alcohol activity. It was not until 1933, when the overall effects of the 18th Amendment would prove to be more negative than positive, that the 21st Amendment repealed the Eighteenth Amendment completely and removed from Constitutional law.

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18th Amendment - constitution | Laws.com

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The Eighteenth Amendment is the only Amendment to ever have been repealed from the United States Constitution-via the inclusion of the Twenty-First Amendment. The 18th Amendment called for the banning of the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcoholic beverages. Known as national Prohibition, the Eighteenth Amendment banned "intoxicating liquors" with the exception of those used for religious rites.

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Black Tuesday/Stock Market Crash of 1929

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Black Tuesday/Stock Market Crash of 1929

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Business Cycle/Causes of the Great Depression

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Business Cycle/Causes of the Great Depression

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Business Encyclopedia ISBN 978-1929500109 © 2019 Solution Matrix Ltd All Rights Reserved

Recessions are the low points of the regular economic cycle. Economists define depression as a recession that is unusually long-lasting and severe.

A depression is an economic downturn that is longer lasting and more severe than the more frequently occurring recessions.

What is the Business Cycle?

The term business cycle has several different meanings in business. This article presents three of the most frequently used definitions for the term. The primary "meaning" is explained in depth, in context with related concepts such as economic cycle, recession, and depression.

First Meaning: Business Cycle for Country Economy

Firstly, the primary meaning of business cycle refers to fluctuations in economic output in a country or countries. These are the well-known phases of the business cycle such as recession, depression, recovery, and expansion. "Economic cycle" is another name for the same sequence.

This business cycle often parallels changes in stock market prices, which are part of the stock market cycle. For more on these cycles and their phases, see the sections below.

Second Meaning: Business Cycle for Company Life Span Stages

Secondly, the term business cycle sometimes refers to stages in the lifespan of a single company. In this sense, " stages" in one company's lifespan may include the following:

1. Birth (or Startup) stage

2. Initial Growth stage

3. Expansion stage

4. Maturity stage

1. Decline stage

2. Demise stage
or
Change into a different company
(e.g., through merger or acquisition)

The economic business cycle (first meaning above) can impact stages of the company business cycle (second meaning). Birth and Growth stages tend to accelerate during economic recovery and expansion, of course. Company Decline and Demise occur faster during economic recession and depression.

Do companies have a finite lifespan? It makes practical sense for accountants to view companies as ongoing entities that will continue in business indefinitely. In reality, however, most business startups move through all six stages and cease business within a few years.

Regarding US S&P 500 Index companies, research by Richard Foster seems to show a recent rapid decline in average company lifespan. Average lifespan fell from 61 years in 1958 to just 18 years in 2015. ¹ Depending on how one defines lifespan, however, that decline may not be as severe as it seems. Foster also finds that many companies now avoid Demise by instead Changing into a different company. These changes usually come through mergers and acquisitions. Arguably, such events do not have to end company life. Mostly the same companies continue living as different legal entities, under different names.

Third Meaning: Business Cycle For An Ongoing Company

The third meaning for business cycle also refers to a repeating series of phases in the life of an ongoing business. Here, however, the sequence does not picture the birth, growth, and demise of a company. Instead, the third meaning describes a repeating series of adjustments a company makes to its business model and strategies. The series may cover a year or several years, and then repeat many times during the company's life.

Note especially that a business cycle in this sense might include stages such as these:

Firstly, the company takes in revenues from ordinary operations for a year or more.

Secondly, leaders and analysts re-evaluate company business performance and growth prospects. For this, they give particular attention to evaluating:

Company business model performance. Here, they will focus mainly on their pricing and margin models.

Competitive strategy effectiveness.

Marketing strategy effectiveness.

Thirdly, leaders adjust or change the business model and strategies.

Successful strategies and models undergo fine-tuning.

The company replaces failing strategies and models.

Finally, company resumes business for another period before re-evaluating.

Explaining Business Cycle in Context

Sections below further define and describe the primary meaning of business cycle, emphasizing three themes:

1. Four Economic Busihess Cycle phases and their relationship to stages in the Stock Market Cycle.

2. Special focus on the nature and differences between Recession and Depression stages of the Business Cycle

3. Known causes and "cures" for the Economic Business Cycle.

Contents
Related Topics

Defining Business Cycle Phases
Recession, Depression, Recovery, Expansion
The primary meaning of business cycle and economic cycle refers to changes in economic activity within a country or countries. Because these two terms are names for the same sequence, they are interchangeable. Economists define the cycle by referring to economic output, which they measure as the country's gross domestic product (GDP). Note that GDP is just the market value of all goods and services produced withinthe country during a year. And, when multi-national companies produce in other countries, that activity is not part of home country GDP.

The image below shows how the rising and falling GDP produces business cycle phases. The model also presents another cycle, the stock market cycle. This cycle typically runs more or less parallel to the business cycle, but ahead of the business cycle. Some analysts, therefore, see the stock market cycle as a leading indicator of future business cycle phases.

Business cycle phases and stock market cycle phases, including recession, depression, trough, recovery, expansion, and peak. Economists sometimes define Recession as two consecutive quarters of decline in the GDP. And, they define Depression as a severe and sustained recession.

The GDP of most countries tends to grow over time, as the long-range growth line in the figure suggests. The long-term growth line serves as a baseline reference. Economic output fluctuates around the baseline with different business cycle phases. Note that stock market prices usually rise or fall ahead of like changes in the economy (GDP).

In reality, these cycles tend to be less predictable, less regular, and less smooth than those in the chart. The length, severity, and sequence of phases may differ from what the figure shows.

Seasonal Cycles Are Different From Economic Cycles

Changes due to seasonality tend to impact some companies and industries more than others. And, they are tied predictably to calendar seasons or short-lived fads. By contrast, the business (economic) cycle has broad impacts across companies, industries, and calendar seasons instead.

Business Cycle Impacts

GDP figures are the primary evidence for the business cycle. It is not surprising, therefore, that people who contribute directly to the GDP feel life-cycle phase changes most keenly. They are most aware of changes in areas such as these:

Employment and unemployment. Also, in hiring rates.

Wholesale sales and retail sales. And, especially, consumer sales.

New building loans and new building starts. Also in mortgage rates.

Building closures and property foreclosures.

Business start-ups and business growth. Also, business failures.

Recession vs. Depression
What's the Difference?
What is a Recession?

In the United States, economists define a recession as two consecutive quarters of decline in the GDP. The National Bureau of Economic Research (NEBR) provides this definition, but it is not, however, the only definition in use. An alternate interpretation even appears within the NEBR, from its Business Cycle Dating Committee. This committee reviews several economic indicators, including employment, real income, retail sales, and other factors. As a result, It defines a recession as the timespan between the peak and a trough in the above chart.

The term recession did not appear until the time of the Great Depression of 1929-33. Before that, the term depression could refer to any decrease in economic output. "Recession" was coined at this time to distinguish between the severe conditions of the early 1930s, on the one hand, and less severe economic downturns, on the other hand, such as those occurring in 1910 and 1913.

What is a Depression?

The term depression usually means an economic downturn that is longer lasting and more severe than the more frequently occurring recessions. Sometimes, to define the term more formally, a depression is said to begin when GDP declines more than 10% from the most recent economic peak. By this criterion, the last two real depressions in the United States occurred in these periods:

From 1929 to 1933-the Great Depression-when the US GDP nearly 33% and unemployment rose to 25%.

In 1937-38, where GDP declined by more than 18%, and unemployment reached 19%.

By contrast, US GDP declined at most 5% in the severe recession of 1973-75.

In general, periods of economic depression are manifest substantially reduced GDP, as well as severely high rates of unemployment, foreclosures, business closures, as well as significantly reduced wholesale and retail sales activity.

The Economic Business Cycle
Are There Known Causes and Cures?
During recessions and depressions governments and private industry alike are keenly motivated to act on measures that might move the economy back into recovery and expansion. Any attempt to remedy economic downturn, however, should start with an understanding of why slowdowns occur in the first place. And, it would be helpful to know which factors trigger recovery.

This subject is central to the field of macroeconomics. Not surprisingly, this field is characterized by competing theories and speculation, but few established "laws."

A few factors are known to correlate with upturns or downturns in the economy. However, the extent to which they are either causes or results is less well known. These factors include the following:

An imbalance or balance between country money supply, inflation, and interest rates. In the United States, the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) is responsible for keeping this balance.

Excessive government spending.
Deficit spending is especially detrimental when spent outside the country or on non-productive domestic programs.

Consumer and business optimism or pessimism.
Here, spending depends heavily on consumer expectations for business growth and inflation.

Substantial increases or decreases in the price of oil.

Weak demand for goods and services.

The latter factor, weak demand, is a central focus in so-called Keynesian economics (after John Maynard Keynes). Since the 1930s, governments with capitalist economies have held-to some degree-a Keynesian view. This view holds that during recessions and depressions, the government should increase aggregate demand by doing the following:

Firstly, increasing the money supply.

Secondly, increasing government spending and reducing taxes.

______________________

1. Foster, R.N. Creative Destruction Whips Through Corporate America. Innosight Executive Briefing, Lexington, Massachusetts, 2015.

By Marty Schmidt

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Business Cycle Phases: Defining Recession, Depression, Expansion

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Business cycle (economic cycle) refers to fluctuations in economic output in a country or countries. Well known cycle phases include recession, depression, recovery, and expansion. A Depression is a long-lasting recessing. The business cycle often parallels share price changes in the stock market cycle.

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President Roosevelt’s New Deal/Plan for Ending the Great Depression

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President Roosevelt’s New Deal/Plan for Ending the Great Depression

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New Deal - Programs, Social Security & FDR

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The New Deal was a series of programs and projects instituted during the Great Depression by President Franklin D. Roosevelt that aimed to restore prosperity to Americans. A Second New Deal was put in place shortly thereafter as a way to continue the country’s economic recovery.

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America’s Involvement in WWII (Pearl Harbor, D-Day, Ending the War with Japan) 

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America’s Involvement in WWII (Pearl Harbor, D-Day, Ending the War with Japan) 

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When Japanese bombers appeared in the skies over Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941, the U.S. military was completely unprepared for the devastating surprise attack, which dramatically altered the course of World War II, especially in the Pacific theater. But there were several key reasons for the bombing that, in hindsight, make it seem almost inevitable.

Tensions Began During the Great Depression

Before the Pearl Harbor attack, tensions between Japan and the United States had been mounting for the better part of a decade.

The island nation of Japan, isolated from the rest of the world for much of its history, embarked on a period of aggressive expansion near the turn of the 20th century. Two successful wars, against China in 1894-95 and the Russo-Japanese War in 1904-05, fueled these ambitions, as did Japan's successful participation in World War I (1914-18) alongside the Allies.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Japan sought to solve its economic and demographic woes by forcing its way into China, starting in 1931 with an invasion of Manchuria. When a commission appointed by the League of Nations condemned the invasion, Japan withdrew from the international organization; it would occupy Manchuria until 1945.

In July 1937, a clash at Beijing's Marco Polo Bridge began another Sino-Japanese war. That December, after Japanese forces captured Nanjing (Nanking), the capital of the Chinese Nationalist Party, or Guomindang (Kuomintang), they proceeded to carry out six weeks of mass killings and rapes now infamous as the Nanjing Massacre.
WATCH: Pearl Harbor: Survivors Remember on HISTORY Vault
The U.S. Was Trying to Stop Japan's Global Expansion

In light of such atrocities, the United States began passing economic sanctions against Japan, including trade embargoes on aircraft exports, oil and scrap metal, among other key goods, and gave economic support to Guomindang forces. In September 1940, Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy, the two fascist regimes then at war with the Allies.

Tokyo and Washington negotiated for months leading up to the Pearl Harbor attack, without success. While the United States hoped embargoes on oil and other key goods would lead Japan to halt its expansionism, the sanctions and other penalties actually convinced Japan to stand its ground, and stirred up the anger of its people against continued Western interference in Asian affairs.

To Japan, war with the United States had become to seem inevitable, in order to defend its status as a major world power. Because the odds were stacked against them, their only chance was the element of surprise.

Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

Destroying the Base at Pearl Harbor Would Mean Japan Controlled the Pacific

In May 1940, the United States had made Pearl Harbor the main base for its Pacific Fleet. As Americans didn't expect the Japanese to attack first in Hawaii, some 4,000 miles away from the Japanese mainland, the base at Pearl Harbor was left relatively undefended, making it an easy target.

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto spent months planning an attack that aimed to destroy the Pacific Fleet and destroy morale in the U.S. Navy, so that it would not be able to fight back as Japanese forces began to advance on targets across the South Pacific.

Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor would drive the United States out of isolation and into World War II, a conflict that would end with Japan's surrender after the devastating atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

At first, however, the Pearl Harbor attack looked like a success for Japan. Its bombers hit all eight U.S. battleships, sinking four and damaging four others, destroyed or damaged more than 300 aircraft and killed some 2,400 Americans at Pearl Harbor.

Japanese forces went on to capture a string of current and former Western colonial possessions by early 1942-including Burma (now Myanmar), British Malaya (Malaysia and Singapore), the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) and the Philippines-giving them access to these islands' plentiful natural resources, including oil and rubber.

But the Pearl Harbor attack had failed in its objective to completely destroy the Pacific Fleet. The Japanese bombers missed oil tanks, ammunition sites and repair facilities, and not a single U.S. aircraft carrier was present during the attack. In June 1942, this failure came to haunt the Japanese, as U.S. forces scored a major victory in the Battle of Midway, decisively turning the tide of war in the Pacific.

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When Japanese bombers appeared in the skies over Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941, the U.S. military was completely unprepared for the devastating surprise attack, which dramatically altered the course of World War II, especially in the Pacific theater.

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The Rise of Totalitarianism in Europe in the 1930s

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The Rise of Totalitarianism in Europe in the 1930s

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Rise of Totalitarianism: AP European History

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The assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand 

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The assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand 

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https://www.history.com/news/the-assassination-of-archduke-franz-ferdinand-100-years-ago

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https://image.slidesharecdn.com/worldwariitechnologiesworldhistory-140520122605-phpapp01/95/world-war-ii-technologies-world-history-1-638.jpg?cb=1400588836

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How was peace established at the end of WWI

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How was peace established at the end of WWI

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https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/post-world-war-i-peace-conference-begins-in-paris

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=N74dCyHbGUg

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https://constitution.laws.com/american-history/constitution/constitutional-amendments/18th-amendment

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Black Tuesday/ Stock Market Crash of 1929

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Black Tuesday/ Stock Market Crash of 1929

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https://i1.wp.com/www.bookofdaystales.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/bt4.jpg

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Business Cycle/ Causes of the great depression

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Business Cycle/ Causes of the great depression

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https://www.business-case-analysis.com/business-cycle.html

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Pres. Roosevelt's new Deal/Plan or ending the Great Depression 

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Pres. Roosevelt's new Deal/Plan or ending the Great Depression 

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https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/new-deal

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-rBhbkvtm0

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The Rise of Totalitarianism in Europe in the 1930s 

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The Rise of Totalitarianism in Europe in the 1930s 

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBEvaCa92Es

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America’s Involvement in WWII (Pearl Harbor, D-Day, Ending the War with Japan) 

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America’s Involvement in WWII (Pearl Harbor, D-Day, Ending the War with Japan) 

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https://www.history.com/news/why-did-japan-attack-pearl-harbor